In the Wake of the Storm
by Fictatious
Summary: Takes place after the shadow-game with Bakura in Duelist Kingdom. Ryou is awoken by nightmares that don't belong to him.


Sleeping was dangerous. Sleeping left his mind unguarded, sank the walls that divided him from his other self and allowed the voices to come through. Sleeping was especially dangerous when their schedules synchronized.

If Ryou slept while the Thief was awake, he would be left alone in his warm, sunlit soul-room, and the Thief would keep it nice and quiet for him, keeping the outside noise from reaching down into Ryou's private sanctuary.

But when the Thief slept, it wasn't quiet. When the Thief was asleep their inner-world was filled with the sounds of people screaming in terror and agony, of fires raging out of control, of bronze swords hacking mercilessly through human flesh. When the Thief dreamed, it was of his childhood, and it was made up of scenes that Ryou couldn't even begin to process.

The Thief rarely slept more than was strictly necessary, and when he did, he tried to do it in Ryou's soul-room, where his host could sooth the terrifying images away with whispered words and gentle hands. But not tonight. Tonight, they were fighting. Or sulking, perhaps. They weren't speaking.

The Thief had holed up in his own soul-room, a place he generally avoided, because he was angry at Ryou. There had been feelings of betrayal and jealousy and abandonment. He was miserable. He didn't seem to think he'd done anything wrong and didn't understand why Ryou had stopped him from _killing _people.

The emotions radiating from the Thief's room had made Ryou feel slightly guilty, as though he'd kicked a puppy in the ribs for peeing on the floor. The logical part of his mind insisted that he not give in and be the one to apologize though, because the Thief hadn't peed on the floor, he'd _tried to kill people_. And that was totally unacceptable.

It had been distracting, but not impossible, to ignore the Thief's sulking for a couple hours, before they had all settled down to sleep, but when the moon was high overhead in the night sky, Ryou bolted upright, gasping for breath and trying hard not to scream. The Thief must have fallen asleep. Even though he was in his own soul-room, the screaming and fire and bloodlust in the glassy eyes of hypnotized soldiers soaked through every part of their shared mind and buffeted against Ryou mercilessly.

He shakily climbed to his feet and jogged away from where he and the others had camped. He climbed up a small hill and sat down in the grass, overlooking the ocean, where he finally unclenched his teeth and let the hysteria that the sounds and images had induced fall from his lip. He hugged his arms around himself and gasped and sobbed, trying to shake away the image of his mother being cut nearly in half by an Egyptian infantryman.

The Thief couldn't remember what his own mother looked like. Even if he hadn't been such a small child when it happened, it had still been over three thousand years ago, and the Thief couldn't even remember what he himself had looked like. The face from the photo in the family alter, the face of Ryou's mother, had taken the place the amorphous mother in his nightmares, just like he had taken Ryou's image as his own. Ryou knew that it hadn't been intentional, and perhaps it was even kind of sweet that the Thief though of Ryou's mother like his own, despite never having actually met her. But by everything that was holy, Ryou wished the Thief hadn't replaced that lost sliver of memory with the face of _his_ mother.

Ryou was so involved in his post-nightmare meltdown that he didn't hear footsteps behind him and jumped almost a foot in the air when a hand touched his shoulder. He turned his tear-streaked face sharply to look up at the person standing behind him. It was Yuugi. No. No it wasn't Yuugi, he realized, taking a closer look at the person's face, it was the _other_ Yuugi.

"What's wrong?" the other Yuugi asked, worried eyes flicking from Ryou's swollen face to the artifact hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

"Oh, n-no," Ryou said quickly, shaking his head. "It's not- it's not him. I-I just had a really t-terrible dream."

"I see," the other Yuugi nodded gravely. He knelt down next to Ryou. "Is there something I can do?"

"No," Ryou shook his head and looked back towards the water, hugging his knees against his chest. "No, there's really not."

"It wasn't related to what happened earlier, was it?" the other Yuugi asked, studying him carefully.

Ryou clenched his teeth, feeling irritated. This guy was asking personal questions like they were close friends or something and what the hell made him think he had that right? Ryou had barely even met _the other Yuugi_ and they hadn't even spoken. What, because they'd _sort of_ played a card game together, that made them best buddies or something?

"I-I don't want to be rude," Ryou said quietly, "but I think I would rather speak to Yuugi, if you don't mind."

"Oh. Oh yes, of course. I'm sorry," the other Yuugi sounded embarrassed. A moment later, there was a sleepy little sound and Ryou glanced over to see Yuugi sitting next to him, looking as though he'd just been woken. "Hm?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes and then blinked, listening to a voice Ryou couldn't hear, and said, "Ah! Yeah, I- Oh!" he glanced at Ryou, looking quiet surprised to find him there. "Bakura-kun?" he asked, taking in Ryou's appearance. "What's wrong?"

"I... I didn't mean that he should wake you..." Ryou whispered, looking at the ground. "I just... didn't want to talk to _him_. I assume he followed me to make sure I didn't go crazy and kill everybody in their sleep."

"Ah... I'm sorry," Yuugi said. "... What happened, Bakura-kun? You..." he trailed off rather than pointing out the obvious fact that Ryou's face was wet and puffy with tears.

"Just a nightmare," Ryou said shaking his head.

"A baku* with nightmare problems?" Yuugi's voice held a faint humor that tugged infectiously at Ryou's lips. "Now I've heard everything."

"It was more than I could eat," Ryou joked softly and then turned to stare out at the ocean again. "... My mother and my little sister died six years ago."

Yuugi was silent next to him, radiating shock. "I- I'm sorry!" he whispered, sounding horrified. "That's what you dreamed about?"

"There was a traffic accident," Ryou explained, avoiding the question at hand. "A truck driver fell asleep."

"I'm so sorry!"

"You'd think, after something like that, I'd at least still have my father," Ryou said quietly, turning his face to look up at the stars. "But he couldn't stand it... I think... he just didn't know how to be a family without them... or he didn't want to. He buries himself in work and spends as much time overseas as he can, because everything here makes him sad..."

"Bakura-kun..." Yuugi mumbled.

"He brought me back something, the first business-trip he went on, he brought back this." Ryou fingered his Millenium Ring, just poking at it first, and then wrapping his hand around it tightly.

"I... I'm so sorry, Bakura-kun," Yuugi sounded like he was ready to cry now.

"Yuugi," Ryou looked at the ground again, feeling uncomfortable. He didn't want to tell Yuugi any more about the Ring and the mind inside of it, the difference it had made for him. Telling Yuugi meant the _other_ Yuugi would know, and for some reason Ryou couldn't shake an unreasonable feeling of contempt for that entity. "I- I'm sorry, it's rude, I just... could I be alone for a while?"

"Of course! I'm sorry, I-" Yuugi scrambled to his feet and started to back-step down the hill, back towards their camping space. "If you ever need to talk to someone..."

"Thank you, Yuugi," Ryou whispered, giving him a faint, empty smile, before turning his eyes back to the ocean and listening to Yuugi's footsteps fade.

Maybe he should go in and find the Thief, wake him up and try to make sense of his earlier behavior, come to an agreement and bring him back into Ryou's soul-room where they could hide together from the darker things lurking deep in both their minds. After all, the Thief was the only one Ryou really had anymore.

...

* Baku: a creature from Cino-Japanese mythology that eats nightmares.


End file.
